I hate you, boxes that tear and spill my books all over the floor. I hate you, bulky sweaters that take up so much of my precious box space and clothing that will not stay properly packed.
I hate having to beg assistance from friends with cars and having to move my furniture at ungodly hours because my local pickup truck owner is only free then. I have problems. The big problem being that I hate packing and I hate moving. The little problems being bending the laws of physics to get this ungodly amount of sheer stuff to fit in my limited amount of boxes. Why will my blue glass George Washington not fit anywhere?
I’m 19 years old! How do I have so much stuff already?
Yea, tell me about it. The good thing is, moves make you ruthless. I’ve never gotten rid of a book in my life…until my latest move. My criteria for keeping a book is no longer “Will I read it again?” or “Did I enjoy it?” or “Will I read it at some point?”, it’s basically “Do I want to carry that heavy fucker down the stairs?”
I’ve lived in two second floor apartments and I love being up here…
But our next one is ground floor. I can’t wait to move in.
If it is not too late, try getting some of those space saver things (for use with vacuums or without) for the sweaters. They aren’t great for everything, but for stuff that has a lot of air in it (pillows), or is really bulky (sweaters), they work pretty well. They can be a bit pricey, but you can re-use them. Just be careful around zippers and sharp objects.
And it is a universally recognized fact that a thing in a box weighs twice as much as the same thing out of a box. Also, non-organic things will change shape and grow when you try to pack them. Science is still looking for an explanation for all of these sorts of phenomenon, which they plan to call “The Theory of the Sheer Bloody Mindedness of the Universe.”
I hate moving too. It is such a pain in the arse. I feel your pain.
I have sometimes wondered too why do I have all of this stuff, and where did it all come from. It does not help that I am a borderline pack-rat and tend to keep all those “important things” like that papier machet (sp?) handpuppet from 4th grade art class. My solution to that problem now is every few years I go thru the boxes of stuff that I have packed up for “safe keeping” and evaluate why I have these things? and Do I really need to keep these things? The way I value “important things” changes as I get older, so it is easier to purge some of that stuff. My husband OTOH refuses to get rid of any of his “important things”… I keep imagining him running around holding the things I want to throw out saying “No, you can’t throw out My Precious”
When we moved into our house, we had to pack up our mineral collection, which is very large… so out came the tissue, newspaper and bubble-wrap and into the boxes they went. We get move into the house and have no where to put them all :mad: So now after nearly 2 years, sadly the collection is mostly still packed up in the boxes and we have forgotten what the heck we have. On the bright side, it will be great fun unpacking them and seeing what we have, that is when we get around to getting someting to display them in
oh yeah… damn you, and such, you stupid boxes that tear… I hate you…
19? Bwahahahahaha! Just wait, bucko! Wait until you have close to 50 years of accumulation. Then you will know pain.
Hell, I haven’t moved in 17 years. But come July, the wife and I move into a larger house. I have already started the weeding process, making pass after pass at the bookcases, consigning book after book to the local “Friends of the Library.”
Thanks for reminding me what I still have to look forward to, you bastard!
When we bought our house, my wife and I both swore that the only way we would be leaving was feet first in a pine box because of what we had gone through packing and moving all our stuff then. That was seventeen years ago and now I’m thinking of moving to Las Vegas when I retire in (hopefully) four years. I’ve already started going through my stuff and deciding what I can get rid of; with any luck I’ll be finished in four years.
In the eight years Papa Tiger and I have been married, we have moved four times for a total of 15,000 miles, not including two inter-city moves (from a rental to a purchased house). We went from a 3000-square-foot rental house to a 1500-square-foot owned house to a 1200-square-foot-living-space townhouse with, thank heaven, a full basement (where everything from the previous two houses that wouldn’t fit anywhere else got shoved) to our current 2000-square-foot house with NO basement (this being south Louisiana) so NO storage.
Add to that my grandmother first moving into a small assisted living but not wanting to sell her stuff, so yours truly ended up with it, then finally passing away a few months ago, with nobody else close enough to take the stuff and my sister not wanting me to sell it; my daughter moving back home with all her stuff; and Papa Tiger’s constantly increasing collection of Mardi Gras beads (one of these years he’s going to ride in a parade and throw them all back…but it’s always NEXT year – and he’s not even a Cubs fan!) – and it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Trust me. If you have this much stuff at 19, you’re just beginning to look forward to the TRUE horrors that are moving. Like the tropical storm that drenched our house here with 14 inches of rain in the five days before the movers arrived to carry all the heavy stuff into the house. (Can you say “mud”?) Like Papa Tiger managing to get sent to a corporate conference the week of one move, so I had to do it all myself with the help of two guys he’d lined up to assist me, one of whom had an injured arm. Like the moving company that managed to have several thousand dollars’ worth of our stuff stolen from storage in the brief time it was in their possession. To my grandmother’s china arriving in smashed pieces.
Actually, we’re going to take the drawers out of the dresser, carry the dresser frame down to the truck, put the drawers back in the dresser, then shove it up against something so it won’t open. Since most of the rest of our clothes are in big Rubbermaid tubs, we’ll just slap the lids on and stack em in the truck. The rest’ll be used as padding in the boxes.
You know, we’ve had over a month to plan this move, and I’ve felt kinda silly doing all this planning in advance (I’ve mentally packed the truck five or six times)…but I remember what a pain in the ass moving is. Sadly, this affects everything. For example, our new apartment has Washer/Dryer hookups, so we’ll probably be getting a Washer and Dryer at some point…and I groan, thinking about moving those big fucking bastards. When we got our current entertainment center, I was swearing just thinking about moving that big, heavy fucker.
Morelin and I actually move stuff pretty well together, so I don’t mind it too much. We carry the big, awkward, heavy stuff down, then I carry all the stuff she can’t lift, then she brings out the rest while I stand in the back of the truck, sweating and swearing and trying to get a gallon of shit on a quart can.
I’ve had to move quite a few times in the last few years. Hell, the longest I’ve lived anywhere since 1997 was two years so I’ve gotten it down to a large degree. Granted the last time I moved, I had gotten married the year before with its attendant logarithmic increase in the amount of stuff I had to move.
The first time I had to move when I was living in a college dorm room, everything I owned fit into a hatchback. The last time I moved, I had to hire movers to take the heavy furniture and book boxes ( I had 16 of them :eek: ), and I made several car trips with the rest of the stuff to save money.
27th Evil, if you are moving over a few days, I recommed that you mov the bookshelves first, set them up, and when you get the books there, unpack them, and reuse the boxes, and I second the advice about using hefty bags for clothing.
If you are into books, i heartily recommend ‘jefferson boxes’ or at least that is what i have heard them called.
They are boxes that are the equivalent to one or 2 shelves that have a lid that is held on with screws. You screw the tops on to pack them to move, take the tops off and stack on their side to turn into a set of book shelves - the books never get unpacked=)
Being military brat and dependent most of my whole life, I have moved some 30 or so times in my 43 years. I hate moving!
I am now ensconced in my beautiful apartment with an actual bathtub and balcony and guest room. For all the complaining, getting away from that old place was worth all the frustration.
